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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • I assume that the whole “Stalin starved his people” thing isn’t talking about the average conditions of the Soviet Union during more “normal” times, but rather specific events of mass starvation like the Holodomor. That being said, famine caused by accidental or malicious management of agriculture is something hardly unique to any single economic system (I imagine a comparison could be made to the Irish potato famine there, for an example of a similar type of disaster under a different economic system), so I’m not sure if it reflects entirely on the kind of system the Soviets were going for as much as it does mistakes in the process of transitioning to that system, and malfeasance on the part of those in charge in pushing the consequences of those mistakes upon disfavored groups.






  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.socialto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneRule
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    6 days ago

    I’ll believe it when they actually generate net electricity output. I don’t necessarily think they’re a scam per se, but given the relative resources available and difficulty even for international projects to get fusion power working, I don’t suspect their efforts will be successful. Would love to be proven wrong of course, or if not for their work to at least contribute useful progress to the effort.









  • In a sense pragmatism would mean that a soldier eats whatever they can, given that generally, people will do things they find objectionable rather than starve, if one was talking about the individual soldiers being pragmatic. However, what I was referring to was the state or military leadership being pragmatic here, because even if your soldiers will eat rations they object to, they’re probably not going to like it, and one can’t so easily pragmatically decide to like something. So even if your soldiers dutifully eat whatever they’re given regardless of if they’d object to doing so given a reasonable choice, it’s still going to hurt morale and therefore hurt their ability to carry out their objectives. Not really arguing with you here obviously, just responding to that hypothetical response you were suggesting someone might give.